I'm excited about the recent arrival of a new casual dining option to my little town of Ferndale, and, judging by the opening day lunchtime crowd, so are many of my neighbors.

The family-owned Peruvian restaurant Culantro debuted in the old Southern Belles' Bistro space on Woodward on Wednesday. Culantro is the name of an herb native to Central and South America, but is also what Peruvians call cilantro, the herb that is featured in many of the dishes here.

Physically, the layout hasn't changed much from its predecessor. There are still just a few high-top tables near the front window and nine booths – 48 seats in all – that share the slender restaurant's 1,600 square feet with an open kitchen, now anchored by a charcoal rotisserie oven imported from Peru that turns out incredibly juicy chicken seven days a week.

Culantro is the brainchild of Peru native Betty Shuell. Shuell owned a restaurant in Ecuador before immigrating to the United States in 2000, where she fell into a career as a nurse.

But she says she's wanted to open another restaurant ever since a friend invited her to a Peruvian dinner at a Salvation Army in Westland four years ago.

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The interior of Culantro, a new Peruvian restaurant that debuted in the former Southern Belles' Bistro in Ferndale.(Photo11: Mark Kurlyandchik, Detroit Free Press)

"The line to eat was so long that I looked at it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, we need a Peruvian restaurant!' " Shuell recalls.

Her husband had an office in Ferndale, and Shuell fell in love with the welcoming little town after visiting a few times.

“When I started coming to Ferndale, I just saw that this is the most open community here in southeast Michigan," says the West Bloomfield resident. "It's so open to every culture and every type of people. And since I started doing this everybody was just so welcoming – even people that I don't know."

She signed the lease in December and has spent the past few months transforming what was a bright soul food restaurant into an earth-toned Peruvian joint. It has touches of faux greenery and table runners inspired by the traditional textiles of her South American motherland.

The affordable menu features 10 entrees, a couple appetizers, a half-dozen sides and a handful of desserts that typify the comidacriolla, otherwise known as traditional Peruvian cuisine.

That means Culantro offers the famous Peruvian dish aji de gallina ($10), shredded chicken in a vibrant cream sauce made of walnuts and Amarillo peppers. There's also lomo saltado ($12), hunks of marinated beef tenderloin stir-fried with tomatoes and red onions. A combination of soy sauce and vinegar contributes a complex and balanced savoriness to a dish that's slightly reminiscent of Tex-Mex fajitas, only better.

Another of my favorite first bites was of the appetizer called papa a la Huancaina ($5.50), or Huancayo-style potatoes. Yellow potatoes are boiled, sliced and then topped with a creamy cheese sauce that made me fondly recall public-school lunch on nacho day. Even the throat-pinching zip imparted by Amarillo peppers felt familiar. The classic Peruvian dish is served at room temp and comes topped with a few olives and a slice of hard-boiled egg.

Of course, Culantro also offers the ubiquitous Peruvian ceviche ($12). Shuell cures long strands of raw white fish (swai or tilapia) in fresh lime juice and then mixes it with cilantro, onions and optional hot peppers. In keeping with tradition, it's served with large-kernel Peruvian corn and a puck of soft sweet potato. While it sounds simple enough, I often find ceviche preparations to be either too sour or the fish "cooked" to death from bathing in the acidic brine for too long. That was not the case with Culantro's ceviche, which was balanced in flavor and cured to perfection despite it being served on a hectic first day of business.

The real star of the show at Culantro, though, is the pollo a la brasa, also known as Peruvian rotisserie chicken. I've never been to Peru but have sampled this specific style of bird at restaurants around North America, from the cosmopolitan city of Montreal to the mountain town of St. George, Utah. I'm shocked it's taken this long to come to metro Detroit, but boy am I happy it's here.

According to Shuell, importing the special oven for the chicken was a journey in itself. It took months to get it here, and when it arrived, it was too wide to fit through the door. But if my first sample of the juicy, delectable chicken that comes out of it is any indication, all that effort was well worth it. The quarter chicken ($7.50) I sampled on day one is the best Peruvian chicken I've ever had. A whole bird, which runs $20 with two sides and can feed a small family, is likely going to become a midweek carryout staple in my household.

Service at Culantro is of the fast-casual variety. You order first and pay at the counter, then take a number to your table.

There's no alcohol served here, but you can instead sample less commonly found drinks like Inka cola or the mulling spiced chichamorada, an ancient sangria-like drink that gets its deep coloring from purple corn.

Peruvian cuisine is finally enjoying a bit of a moment locally after a few years in the national spotlight. In addition to Culantro, Midtown newcomer Bolero has been serving Peruvian fare as part of its South American-inspired menu since last winter, and Atomic Chicken in New Center hosted a Peruvian pop-up earlier this spring.

But Shuell's goal with Culantro goes beyond just serving the food she grew up with.

“When you are out of your country, you miss your people," she says. "And there’s no place to meet your people here because Peruvians are spread all over Michigan. There is not a place where we can meet and we can talk and we can just share something.

“That’s what I want to do. I want a place where we can meet people and share something.”